Malta registered a sudden increase in youth unemployment last month, pushing the average closer to the high rates experienced in the eurozone.

Although the overall unemployment rate in March rose only slightly when compared to the previous month, jobless youth under 25 years old increased by almost one per cent to reach 13.9 per cent in the same period. The increase in the same month last year stood at 2.4 per cent.

Still, the figure remained lower than the average for the euro area where unemployment among people this age stood at 18.1 per cent last month. Spain had the highest amount of unemployed under 25, at 34.4 per cent, followed by Sweden and Latvia, which both recorded an unemployment in this category of over 25 per cent.

The situation is less of a problem in Malta in terms of general unemployment. There was only a minimal increase over February.

In March, Malta registered an unemployment level of 6.7 per cent, 0.2 per cent more than in February and significantly lower than the average in the euro area, which, in March, reached 8.9 per cent. However, when compared to a year ago, unemployment levels grew by 0.9 per cent; it stood at 5.8 per cent in March 2008.

The Eurostat figures show that the recession is biting across all EU member states.

Compared to a year ago, only three member states recorded a fall in the unemployment rate, 23 registered an increase and the rate remained stable in the Netherlands.

The falls were observed in Romania (6.1 to 5.8 per cent), Bulgaria (6.1 to 5.9 per cent) and Greece (7.9 to 7.8 per cent). The highest increases were registered in Lithuania (4.3 to 15.5 per cent), Latvia (6.1 to 16.1 per cent) and Spain (9.5 to 17.4 per cent).

Eurostat estimates over 20 million people were unemployed in March, an increase of over four million in the EU27 in the last 12 months.